I went here: https://www.google.com/cse/ and created a custom search engine to get better results when searching Mint/Ubuntu sites. The result works very well, although it is only presented as a piece of html that is supposed to be embedded into a website. Well I don't want to do that, I want to use it as a search engine in Firefox, but I can't find the way to do this. At the moment the html code is just saved as a file which I click to launch the code in Firefox, but this is very inconvenient, I am sure there must be a way to get it recognised as a search engine, and then I could give it a keyword when I wanted to use it. Anyone know how I could achieve this?

That only searches linuxmint.com - I can do that with a simple keyword search. My CSE search engine searches ubuntuforums and omgubuntu as well as linuxmint.com and the mint forums, that is why it's better, and why I would like to integrate it with FF. Right enough it wasn't meant for that purpose, it is meant for embedding in a web site so I will probably have to live with my keyboard shortcut.

Have a go with it if you like, just take this code, paste it into a file, rename it to something like 'search.html' and click it.

i tried the CSE google search and as-is (as far as i could see) it's only for embedding in web pages (as you said) or to use as a widget in igoogle's home page (not a very good solution because i read somewhere that igoogle is going away)

but my suggestion above was to use altair's method to integrate the snippet generated by CSE into FF (the same way he did with it's own). mind you that i didn't test it

Sorry zerozereo, my misunderstanding, I tried that suggestion, but the newly created search plugin doesn't even show up. The html code supplied by google doesn't look much like the xml code used in the existing plugins and I have no idea how to convert one to the other.

viking777 wrote:I went here: https://www.google.com/cse/ and created a custom search engine to get better results when searching Mint/Ubuntu sites. The result works very well, although it is only presented as a piece of html that is supposed to be embedded into a website. Well I don't want to do that, I want to use it as a search engine in Firefox, but I can't find the way to do this. At the moment the html code is just saved as a file which I click to launch the code in Firefox, but this is very inconvenient, I am sure there must be a way to get it recognised as a search engine, and then I could give it a keyword when I wanted to use it. Anyone know how I could achieve this?

Thanks sunnewbie, I did look at your post but it doesn't answer my question - how do I use my own CSE as one of Firefox's default search engines. Your own posts only describe how to embed it in a website or a google home page - I don't have or want either, so it doesn't help me. If you reread my opening post you will see that I have already tried 'Add to search bar' and that doesn't work either.

I am so embarrased for not seeing that, and so grateful to you for pointing it out sunnewbie. I just never even thought of trying that - and neither did others because there is a bug reported for this problem to which I added my reply. Thanks a million it is just what I was looking for

viking777 wrote:I am so embarrased for not seeing that, and so grateful to you for pointing it out sunnewbie. I just never even thought of trying that - and neither did others because there is a bug reported for this problem to which I added my reply. Thanks a million it is just what I was looking for

Glad that it worked. Actually, before I submitted my second post, you had already posted a reply. So don't be embarrassed.

sometimes things are very simple for hardcore coders

I wanted to add a tutorial on 'how to LBSE to browser search bar', but was too lazy to take screenshots - even after finding awesome screenshot - a chrome/ium extension, where I can mark and annotate easily. I do not need GIMP or Inkscape or Krita for it

Before a year or so, many 3rd party tools like conduit toolbar did not recognized CSE's, so I could not add my CSE to a custom toolbar. I have quit the toolbar as it takes time to load, so not many will want to install it.

Not to self promote LBSE, but just incase someone still finds it difficult to add google CSE or any CSE to your Browser, so that you can search directly from address bar, here is the link. I have explained it along with screenshots.